Mainers vote all over ticket > Independent streak demonstrated

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AUGUSTA – In the end, Maine’s presidential election wasn’t so close after all. Relatively speaking, Democrat Al Gore cruised to victory over Republican George W. Bush even as Green Party nominee Ralph Nader took a sizable chunk of votes.

But at the same time, incumbent Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe had an even easier time of her own besting Democratic challenger Mark Lawrence.

Good showing for the Democrat at the top of the ticket, fine figures for the Republican just below. Puzzling? Well, ticket splitting is common enough in Maine.

Two Democratic congressmen, 1st District Rep. Tom Allen and 2nd District Rep. John Baldacci, handily won re-election, as expected.

But if you’re still in doubt about last week’s election being an odd one, just take a look at the outcome in the Legislature.

House Democrats ran strong enough to pick up a net of nine seats, expanding their majority in the 151-member chamber to 88. Voters, however, pared back a Democratic Senate majority of 20-14-1 to bare parity with Republicans at 17-17-1.

Yet another, and maybe more striking, example of voters alternately rewarding and punishing Democrats and Republicans at the same time.

No doubt, local factors were involved in the State House outcome, as was the comparative overall strength of Democratic and Republican candidate rosters.

But some close observers were left shaking their heads.

“It’s really confusing,” said Maine Republican Party executive director Dwayne Bickford.

There was one line of consistency in Tuesday’s balloting, though it bordered on unique. Faced with six referendum questions, majorities of the electorate apparently went the same way all six times. No, no, no, no, no, no!

Maine voters rejected physician-assisted suicide and gay rights.

They rejected new forest-cutting rules and video lottery machines for Scarborough Downs.

And they rejected special tax assessments for land associated with commercial fishing and voting by mentally ill people under guardianship.

“I think it’s called Maine independence,” said Portland lawyer Ken Cole, a longtime GOP activist who serves as a Republican National Committeeman. “Whoever was positioned to be the moderate centrist won.”

Maine Democratic Party vice chairman Paul Tessier, a state representative from Fairfield, said logical reasons could be found for most, if not all, voter verdicts by taking the ballot line by line.

Snowe and the two congressmen, he said, benefited across the board from being known commodities with whom many voters of all stripes were comfortable.

Energetic Democratic campaign organizations buoyed the presidential and state House of Representatives efforts, he said, but could not overcome a highly charged GOP drive for state Senate seats.

“As far as the referendums, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t have an explanation for that one.”

Who were these voters whose individual decisions added up to the seesaw treatment of candidates up and down the ballots?

Exit polling on Tuesday produced this portrait:

. AGE: Nearly one-third of voters were between the ages of 30 and 44, another third between 45 and 59. Sixteen percent were 29 or younger, 22 percent 60 or older.

. EDUCATION LEVEL: Thirty-eight percent had completed college, 62 percent had not.

. FAMILY INCOME: Twelve percent less than $15,000; 22 percent $15,000-$30,000; 26 percent $30,000-$50,000; 23 percent $50,000-$75,000; 10 percent $75,000-$100,000; 8 percent $100,000 or more.

. PARTY ID: 31 percent Democrat; 27 percent Republican; 42 percent independent.

. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: About half described themselves as moderate, with liberals and conservatives splitting the remainder.

. CLINTON ATTITUDES: Approved of President Clinton’s job performance by 60 percent to 37 percent; viewed Clinton as a person unfavorably by 61 percent to 36 percent.

. GOVERNMENT ATTITUDES: Fifty-four percent believed government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals, while 40 percent believed government should do more to solve problems.

The portrait of the Maine electorate was drawn from an exit poll of 994 voters Tuesday by Voter News Service, a partnership of The Associated Press and the ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC television networks.

Results were subject to sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for all voters, higher for subgroups.